Can One Person Love Two People at Once?

I'll start off by saying, I know there are different degrees of love. The question posed is referring to being "in love" with two people. (Not booty calls & jump-offs! If thats your love triangle skip straight to the last sentence below). I ask this because recently I've seen several examples of people (both men & women) who were in supposed "monogamous" relationships not only cheating with another, but also professing true love for both parties. My first inclination is to think that it's impossible, but is it really? Two different people can bring two different set of assets to the table however, we do not live in a society where this is acceptable. Maybe if you were able to approach a love triangle with truth and honesty and be allowed to love both parties openly, it seems like it would be a lot of work, but more possible than if it's a cheating/sneaking/lieing situation.

Love triangles by nature are just wrong. Someone is always the odd man out, and knows it. I've always thought of it like romantic musical chairs. Whoever that person is that is left out gets pissed. Because of this, most people aren't just openly loving other people. They are cheating behind closed doors and in whispers behind people's backs. Because the first party has a promise of love & fidelity, as long as the cheater reassures them, they usually don't complain. The odd man out, who usually sleeps alone only has promises of the future to keep them warm at night. In the examples I've seen, the cheater is able to paint such vivid pictures, and establish such a strong connection that the odd man in inspired to hope for a future and professes love for them too. This encourages the cheating. But could this type of situation bare fruit to any sort of love?

I don't necessarily believe in Polygamy, but I found it interesting to see how they are able to take the shameful elements (cheating/sneaking/lieing) out of the equation. They tend to be honest & upfront with whomever they get involved with from the beginning about that belief. And from what I've seen on the cable television show, when they are ready to bring in another, they approach it together. And it did not seem to be based on just having sex, or the thrill of sneaking around, or deceiving anyone. Of course I don't know if that's accurate, but I like how they depict the people as being open, honest, and caring. In this case it seemed as if being (genuinely) in love with more than one person at once could be possible.

Since most of us are not Polygamists, nobody I know will probably ever be able to approach a love triangle with honesty. It's selfish to keep two people in emotional bondage just because you don't want to choose. Life is full of tough choices and we live in a culture where we are conditioned to expect to be the only one. An honorable person who aspires to be in a healthy relationship would just have to make a choice. Never mind how it should never get that far in the first place, but if it does, we owe it to ourselves and the people we love to be honest about the type of relationship we really want to be in. If the eye is wondering, & unless you live in a Polygamist Community, you may want to focus on either improving the relationship your in, or simply getting out of it & moving on. Love is a lot of things but it certainly is not greedy.